Boaters around here know the Douglasses as the king and queen of cruisers, and their handbooks are our bibles. They've been everywhere, done everything, and they take *really* good notes. This guide is one result; it includes details on every anchorage, waypoint and description in the area. If you plan to spend any time in Pacific Northwest waters, this book is a must have.

For anyone with an intrest in military aviation, this book written by Paul Crickmore and Alison Crickmore, is a definite addition to your collecton that has to be made. F-117 covers the entire history of the Stealth fighter, from original designs to Desert Storm and beyond. Throughout the book are hundreds of fantastic photos that can only be found in this book. With exciting narratives from the pilots who flew the first raids over Baghdad to the first test pilots who flew the aircraft over the deserts of Nevada. F-117 is the most comprehensive book on the aircraft and is a wonderful addition to anyone's collection. Aviation books don't come any better than this.

I found this book to extremely useful for quick field identifications. The pictures are great, as is the accompying descriptive text. The book is well organized so looking up a particular insect is easy. Also the book not only describes various insects but also gives vital information about them, such as their life cycles, impact on man and the enviroment, where they can be found, and what they eat.

This is a completely new reptile/amphibian field guide to Florida (its about time!) by one of our favorite author teams: R.D. Bartlett and Patricia P. Bartlett. This book covers all the amphibians, lizards, turtles, tortoises, crocodiles, and alligators. It complements Alan Tennant's authoritative Field Guide to Snakes of Florida (by the same publisher). Dick Bartlett's photography is superb! Highly recommended.

Lack of colored pictures. Very informative. Super guide for scuba divers and naturalists as well as shell collectors.

Mrs Andrew's Books are alaways a jewel. I have the second printing of this book and have read through this one. I admit I perfer the earlier editions; large books with lots of info, but you certainly wouldn't call them field guides. This book is, and next to Abbot's large American Shells this is probably the most comprehensive regional guide to American Shells.

As a little side note as a kid I shelled most of east and central Texas beaches. I became very familiar with the various species on the different beaches. I did find a few odd shells further north than were listed in her book and some of the shells she lists as fairly common seem much less so to me (I told her as much so! :)) . But this book is simply top notch. And no, I won't tell you where I find my Scothch Bonnets and Atlantic Deer Cowries!

I own several field guides to Texas wildflowers, and I find this one to be the best among them. There are books with bigger and better photographs, but none come close to having the nearly 400 color photos this one has. This one also has maps of growing areas for each plant identified and very clear descriptions of each plant. It even has sections on Texas' endangered species and landscaping with native plants.

The book divides the plants into five sections for easy use. The wildflowers are further divided into colors to help find and identify them quickly. The five sections are (1) herbaceous wildflowers, (2) vines, (3) trees and shrubs, (4) cacti, agaves, yuccas and other succulents, and (5) miscellaneous plants, weeds and growths on trees. These are followed by appendices on how to identify common plant families and "plant watching" as a hobby (collecting plants, how to make a plant press and save your specimens, and a sample wildflower documentation sheet). Finally, there are three glossaries and an index.

While some might complain that the plant photographs are not printed with the specimen entries (they are grouped together in the center of the book), this is really quite handy. Each photo is numbered identically with the entries, so matching the photo with the description is really very simple. Indeed, it is quite easy to find the flower by its photo and then look up the corresponding plant description by the photo number.

All in all, this is the only wildflower field guide Texans will need. If you want a desk reference, that's another matter.

Tommy's book is required reading if you are new to saltwater fly fishing. The book has allowed me to accelerate my learning curve and appreciate this fun and exciting sport. I found every recommendation of equipment and tackle to be right on the money and I have used everything I purchased at his suggestion. I have lived in the Carolinas for over 25 years but never discovered our vast flyfishing opportunities until reading this book. I wore out the binding on my hardback edition because I referred to it so often!

It's been said that what Elmore Leonard ("Freaky Deaky," "Get Shorty," etc.) did for crime novels in urban environments, Ross Thomas did for crime novels in suburban environments. Thomas' novels aren't so much gritty as they are witty, and less about openly violent crimes as about deep corruption beneath the veneer of civilization.

"The Fools in Town Are On Our Side" is one of the best Thomas novels. It's really about three or four stories all wrapped together. The stories all happen to be about the narrator, Lucifer C. Dye. Dye was born in Montana, but spent his childhood in Shanghai, China, before and during World War II. Story No. 1 is about how he came to be raised by a Russian-born madam running Shanghai's top brothel. Story No. 2 is about how Dye came to be the youngest Sergeant Major in the U.S. Army during the Korean War, largely on the strength of his perfectly fluent Mandarin (Chinese), and his subsequent recruitment into a government intelligence program. Story No. 3 is about how he got booted out of the program. And Story No. 4 is the main story, wherein he is offered $50,000 (it was worth a lot more back in 1970 when the book was written) to help "corrupt" a town, the idea being that in order to get the townspeople to vote for a reform slate, they have to be really fed up with corruption. That requires making things far worse so people see how bad the corruption is.

Of course, Thomas does not tell the stories in that sequence. Instead, they're all mixed together, which ordinarily I find annoying, but each story is so interesting that the technique works here.

There's a little bit of violence, but for the most part, the book is really about intrigue, double-dealings, and so forth. If you've never read anything by Ross Thomas, this is a great introduction.

It is the adamant contention of this reviewer that Alabama history must be learned through the various articles and books which confine themselves to a specific subject. Since 1947, the Alabama Historical Association, in conjunction with Auburn University, has produced the quarterly publication "The Alabama Review". Each issue of the "Review" features in-depth articles on various persons and incidences in Alabama history. The very guidelines of the editorial board of the "Review" require articles to be accurate and documented in every respect. It is for this reason that most of the foremost writers of Alabama history have been contributors to the "Review". Indeed, many "Review" articles have spawned books of larger scope and "Review" articles can be found among the annotations of most every book which conerns itself with some aspect of Alabama history. This compilation of several "Review" articles is requred reading for every serious student of Alabama history. Here, the reader can delve into articles which explore the rise and fall of the Agrarian and Populist movements of the 1880's-early 1890's, the intra-party struggles manifested in the famous political confrontation between the forces of Gov. Joseph Johnston and U.S. Senator John Tyler Morgan, the 1920's, characterized by the concurrent forces of Klan resurgence and the supremacy of Alabama's first true populist governor, Bibb Graves, the self-inflicted political death of Cotton Tom Heflin, whose all-consuming hatred of Roman Catholicism moved him to disavow support for Al Smith in the 1928 presidential elections. Here, also, are studies of the phenomenon of Big Jim Folsom and the post-World War II brand of populism, which pitted the reformist and flamboyant Folsom against the entrenched forces of the old Black Belt Bourbon aristocracy, followed by J. Mills Thornton's excellent narrative of the 1955-56 Montgomery bus boycott and its legacy. This rather large compilation of "Review" articles includes many other valuable works, including Dr. Wiggins' own perspective on the Scalawag in Reconstruction Alabama politics. Altogether, the articles in this compilation are an excellent resource for both historians and others interested in Alabama history. This reviewer offers his highest recommendation, along with the hope that a subsequent volume of further "Review" articles will be forthcoming.